In a major development following the Ankita Bhandari murder case, the Uttarakhand State Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal to end the Revenue Police system prevalent in several districts in the state and replace it with the regular police instead. This decision was conveyed to the Supreme Court during a hearing on the matter.
Deputy Advocate General State of Uttarakhand Jatinder Kumar Sethi informed the Supreme Court that the State Cabinet in its meeting held on October 12, 2022, decided to bring those areas under the jurisdiction of regular police which that are presently being policed by the revenue police.
The Pushkar Singh Dhami government’s decision conforms to a High Court order in 2018, which had asked the govt to replace the revenue police with regular police for criminal cases. The state government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court informing about the decision to implement the High Court order. Earlier, the state govt had approached the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order, but now they have decided to take a U-turn after the serious flaws in the existing system were exposed by the Ankita Bhandari murder case. A separate plea was also filed with the apex court urging to direct the state govt to reform the policing system in the state.
After the affidavit of the Uttarakhand govt, the Supreme Court stopped hearing the case. A bench of CJI UU Lalit and justice Bela M Trivedi said that the govt has informed it about the decision taken in a cabinet meeting on 12th October, where the cabinet decided to follow the Nainital High Court order to abolish the revenue police system. Therefore, there is no need for the apex court to get involved in the matter now. With this, the court dismissed all petitions filed in relation to the revenue police system in Uttarakhand.
However, the change will be done in stages, not in one go. The Uttrakhand Government told that in the first phase, all heinous crimes including crimes against women, kidnapping, cyber-crime, POCSO etc shall be handed over to the Regular Police by the District Magistrates immediately and State Administration shall prepare a detailed blueprint for remaining areas and prepare the necessary proposal for up gradation of Cadre Strength of the existing police, necessary Infrastructure for Police Stations and outposts etc along with cost implications and means of financing. All these will be put up for decision of the State Cabinet after six months.
“In the interim, the District Magistrates shall continue to keep a close watch on crime reported in their respective districts and each case will be assessed for the necessity of handling by regular police and decisions taken accordingly by the District Magistrate on a case to case basis,” the state govt said in the court.
Accepting the state govt’s affidavit and dismissing the cases, the bench said, “though the issues raised in the Special Leave Petition do call for authoritative pronouncement, in view of the decision taken by the State Cabinet in its meeting on October 12, principally accepting the decision of the High Court and taking appropriate steps to implement said directions, we see no reason to interfere with the present petition. The Special Leave petition is therefore disposed of leaving all questions of law open.”
After the transition is complete, in the districts where the 161-year-old Patwari police system was in place, criminal cases will be handled and investigated by regular police. The state govt is in the process of opening new police stations in those places.
The revenue police system is in place in around 7500 revenue villages in the state, and in the first phase around 1500 villages will be brought under regular police. The state government aims to complete the transition to regular police in the next two to three years.
The questions on the Patwari police system had come up again in the backdrop of the Ankita Bhandari murder case, as the local Patwari police’s action had come under intense scrutiny following the case. It was found that the revenue police in the Ankita Bhandari murder case did not register a complaint in time and also favoured the accused resort owner Pulkit Arya. Ankita Bhandari was murdered on September 18 however, no complaint was registered by the local Patwari even after informing about the victim’s disappearance.
Instead of registering the case after it was reported that Ankita had gone missing, Patwari Vaibhav Pratap had chosen to be silent and then went on leave. Three accused in the case were arrested only after the case was registered and transferred to the regular police on September 22. The regular police charged the Vanantra resort owner Pulkit Arya and two others under the relevant sections of the IPC for murdering Bhandari, who worked at the resort. Patwari Pratap was suspended and eventually arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) for carelessness and siding with the accused.
The Revenue Police system
The revenue police system was introduced by the British over a century ago when crimes were low in the mountainous districts. The goal was to conserve money and resources by not deploying the regular police in the area. British Indian government had regularised this system under the Scheduled Districts Act passed in 1874. Under this law, the patwari was given the power of a station officer of police. The system was continued even after independence, as the crime rates in those areas were still low and the existing revenue police system was working fine.
Civil officials of the revenue department have the powers and responsibilities of ordinary police officers under the unique revenue police system. According to this system, whenever a crime occurs in the region, the revenue police register an FIR, investigate the matter, arrest the culprit, and file a charge sheet in the local court.
While revenue officers perform police duties under this system, they are not given weapons. This has earned them the nickname ‘Gandhi Police’.
However, the case is transferred to normal police in cases of grave crimes such as murder, rape, or offences against Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The procedure might take days or even months since the revenue police first forward the information to the district Superintendent of Police (SP), who then transfers the case to a normal police station. Often, the delay causes vital evidence to vanish or undermines the case in other ways. Moreover, as the revenue officials are not trained to perform police duties, and they have the responsibilities of the revenue department also, investigations by them get delayed.
Although Uttarakhand has a regular police force, its authority does not extend to certain mountainous areas. Currently, the revenue police jurisdiction spans more than 50% of the state’s land area and around 25% of its population. This system is unique to Uttarakhand, in other states, the duties of revenue officials include maintaining records of land, cultivation and land revenue, and collecting revenues. They are also deployed for census and election duties, but they do not perform policing duties in other states.
High Court’s 2018 decision
Earlier in the year 2018, the Uttarakhand High Court had ordered the state government to do away with the century-old practice of the revenue police system. “…more than a century old practice of revenue police system… in many parts of the state of Uttarakhand is ordered to be abolished within six months”, the order by the court read while hearing a case of a woman’s alleged killing by her in-laws for dowry in 2011 in Tehri Garhwal district.
Justices Rajiv Sharma and Alok Singh had said that the revenue police are not qualified to investigate serious offences nor do they know about the laws related to crime like IPC and CrPC. The High Court had ruled that in such a situation, the chances of getting justice for the victim’s family become very less. It had asked the state to abolish the revenue police system within six months. However, the statement government had approached the Supreme Court against this order. But the Supreme Court neither stayed the High Court order nor asked the state govt to implement it, and therefore the existing system continued. There was no hearing in the case since 2019, but things started to move in the apex court after the Ankita Bhandari murder, as a plea was filed asking the court to abolish the old system.
However, now the Uttarakhand Government has changed its position, and the state cabinet approved the plan to replace the state’s revenue police system with regular police. This will be implemented in stages. The territory of current police stations and outposts will be expanded in the first phase.
In addition, approval has been given for six additional police stations and 20 police outposts in locations where tourist and commercial activities are increasing. After this, the duties of the revenue officials will be limited to land-related matters only, like other states.